


It could grip it by the husk

by deirdre_c



Category: Merlin (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deirdre_c/pseuds/deirdre_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean have an unexpected encounter at the Renaissance Faire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It could grip it by the husk

  
_"Did you know,” he asked wistfully, “that I was one of the Old Ones myself? My father was a demon, they say, but my mother was Gael."_   
Merlyn in _The Once and Future King_ by T.H. White   


 

***

“Dragon on a stick! Get your dragon on a stick!”

The vendor was wandering the grassy pathways of the main concourse between colorful pavilions and muddy paddocks, holding aloft a sample of wares—a collection of brownish, lumpy ribbons of fried meat, each skewered on a thin strip of wood.

“Dragon on a stick!” she called again.

Dean grabbed Sam’s elbow and steered him over.

Sam yanked his arm out of Dean’s grasp. “Dude, really? You just ate a turkey drumstick the size of your head back at the front gate.”

“I’m a growing boy, _Mommy_.” Dean forged ahead, indefatigable. “Besides, how can you pass up authentic dragon?”

Sam widened his stride to catch up. “It’s just chicken.”

“Untrue, milord,” the Ren Faire peddler piped up, her straight, white smile belying her impeccably ragged period costume skirts and brown knee socks and dusty clogs. “’Tis not chicken but dragon—as the Heavens are my witness.”

Dean shot the meat an almost skeptical look. “What the heck is it really?”

“ _Alligator_ ,” the girl whispered, shrugging. Then, falling back into character, she threw her arms wide. “This ‘gator be a monstrous, dragonlike lizard, hunted in the wild swamps of the southland with nasty, big, pointy teeth. Many knights fell riven beneath its claws to bring this delicacy to our fair land.”

Sam remained unconvinced.

Dean, however? His eyes lit up even brighter. “How much?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

“That be seven single paper notes per skewer,” the vendor said, smirking at Sam like she’d just beaten him in some contest of wits. Sam simply sighed and crossed his arms, waiting patiently for Dean to quit getting sidetracked and focus on the job. They’d have to finish up soon, or they’d miss the Human Chess Match at 2:30.

Dean collected his change and his dragon, and together, they set off down the wide row of tents and deliberately rough-hewn wooden carts, strolling slowly along with the flow of the crowd. The musky-sweet smell of incense from a fortune-teller’s stall they passed mingled with the fainter scents of leather and fried dough.

Sam checked the Faire guidebook’s map to make sure they were still headed toward Dennis’ booth. “One, two… five more—would you call ‘em, cross-streets?— until we have to turn.”

He glanced over at Dean who was gnawing big chunks of meat off of the stick, liquid running down to his chin, then returned to flipping through the guidebook’s pages in hopes of erasing that particular image from his brain.

“Hey. Looks like we can sign some waivers and for a couple of bucks they’ll let us try jousting.” Sam figured if he first dangled the chance of heavy weaponry in front of his brother’s nose, there might be less bitching about the chess. Plus, seriously, jousting? How cool was that?

Dean lobbed his picked-clean skewer into a trashcan, dodged a couple of ladies-in-waiting--checking out their low-cut bodices on the way past--shook off a kid selling authentic glow-in-the-dark Grails, and gallantly pushed an empty baby stroller out of the main flow of traffic before replying. “You mean you’re going to give me the chance to knock you off your high horse? Bring it on.”

“You don’t joust man-to-man, jerk. You just gallop down the track and try to hit rings or dummies or--“

Dean smirked. “Like I said, against you.”

“Oh, Dean, that’s weak. Newborn kitten weak.”

“Sorry. I got distracted contemplating all the jokes I’ll be making about my long, rigid lance.”

“Auugh.” Sam rolled his eyes and scanned the area for the sign for Guildhall Row. Then he glanced sidelong at Dean. “Whoa, did you see that?”

“What?”

Sam donned his most innocent face. “Oh, guess you must’ve just missed her.”

“Who?” Dean scanned the crowd.

“The woman in the chain-mail bikini.”

Dean’s head whipped around so fast, Sam thought he probably strained a ligament. “No way! Where?”

Sam simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

Dean glared. “I hate you.”

“Big links, that chain-mail.”

“You’re not fooling anyone, you know.”

***

Dennis was a metalsmith. Dean and Sam knew him as a special arms supplier for hunters looking for custom-made blades and bullets and such. On Bobby’s recommendation, they’d even taken the Colt to him at one point, but he hadn’t been able to help with that particular project. Turned out, Dennis also spent summers on the Faire circuit, making a legit living selling a vast assortment of mail, maces, daggers, and swords.

His pavilion was like a Ren Faire superstore, a bright white and blue-striped canvas structure three times the size of the booths around it. A massive banner in Elizabethan font proclaimed it “The Black Knight’s Armoury,” and as Sam ducked his head under the entranceway, he saw it was filled, not only with medieval weapons and shields and armor, but also with colonial sabers, tomahawks, pirate cutlasses, scimitars, wooden bokken—you name it. Some merchandise was carefully arranged—small, intricate blades perched on stands, gleaming helmets on mannequin heads—but most of it was piled haphazardly in bins around, on, and under long tables.

There were a number of customers-- mostly teenage boys-- browsing through the goods, their excited chatter over this weapon and that resonating up in the tent rafters. Dennis himself was puttering around behind one of the tables of accessories. He looked the part perfectly: taller than Dean was, almost as tall as Sam, but bull-necked and barrel-chested like a linebacker, dressed up in hard leather cuirass and bracers, long salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a thong. Sam guessed he fended off a lot of bartering by playing up the fearsome look, when he was really a big teddy bear.

“Hi, boys,” he greeted them, gently setting down the crossbow he’d been examining. “Glad you could stop by.”

“Good to see you, Dennis,” Dean replied, shaking his hand.

“Hey, Dennis,” Sam echoed, pulling out a sheet of paper and unfolding it to show the merchant a picture of Ruby’s lost dagger. “We were wondering, you ever seen anything like this?”

Dennis scrutinized the drawing for a minute or two, blunt fingers tracing a pattern over the penciled lines of hilt and blade. “I’m not sure. Don’t recognize it right off the bat, but I think I remember one sort of like it that was blue-- no yellow. Lemme check in my reference albums in the back. Hold on.”

He threw a nod toward an assistant who was manning the cash register and slipped through a curtain in the back of the tent.

Sam looked over at Dean, who gave him a little “let’s check things out” hand signal, so Sam began wandering around, testing the weight on a couple of blades and poking through a box of fascinating stylized shuriken shaped like spiders. He heard the muffled report of trumpets sounding a call to the Faire’s noon melee, and Dennis’ patrons began to rapidly clear out.

Soon, there was only customer left in the tent besides him and Dean, crouched in a corner, busy rummaging through a stack of old swords. He was a skinny, dark-haired kid with big ears, dressed in a costume of shabby brown trousers and tunic and an oddly vivid red kerchief.

He must’ve found what he was looking for, because Sam watched him leap to his feet with a thrilled, “Ah ha!” Then, as he extended a hand, one of the swords appeared to leap out of the pile and slap into his palm.

As it did, Sam saw his eyes flash yellow.

“Demon!” Sam snarled. Closing quickly, he slammed the boy against the wall, one arm up under his chin. He could sense Dean immediately at his back, just over his right shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“’M not a demon,” his captive choked, insistent. “Sorcerer.”

Sam pressed with his forearm a tiny bit harder. Just as a warning. “Christo.”

There was no change to the pair of bright blue eyes, no resulting flinch. Instead, the boy recited a prayer. “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen.” Then he crossed himself. “Does that count as proof? Will you let me go?”

Sam glanced back at Dean, who clenched his jaw tight but shrugged. “I left my holy water in the car.”

Sam retreated warily, setting the kid back on his feet but keeping his hands locked on his shoulders, aware of the sword still clutched between them.

“What did you mean, ‘sorcerer?’”

“Like this.” The kid stared intently at Sam. His eyes glowed yellow again for a moment, then they grew wide with fear. “Nothing happened!”

Somehow, it reminded Sam of Andy Gallagher, that same certainty and then surprise. But hadn’t all the other Special Kids been killed after Cold Oak? And this boy was much too young, wasn’t he? Urgently, Sam demanded, “Who is your mother? Your father? Are they alive? What’re you doing here? What is your name?”

The boy’s response came out in a clipped, British-accented rush. “My name’s Merlin and it’s all a bit complicated. I came from… from a long way away to fetch this sword. See, I hid it once, at the bottom of a lake, actually, but when we found out Arthur needed it again, a terrible sorceress enchanted it into the fu—I mean, far away, and I had to track it down and find it and—“

“Wait a minute,” Sam interrupted. “Merlin? You mean, um, _the_ Merlin?”

Sam didn’t think this was really the appropriate time to adhere to any of that Faire role-play nonsense, but the kid cocked his head to the side curiously, then nodded.

Sam looked down at the sword. It was burnished gold, but otherwise pretty unimpressive. It looked smallish and light-weight, with an unadorned guard and a simple studded circle for the pommel and crossed bands on the grip. The only thing interesting or ornate about it was the runes running up and down the blade.

“And I suppose this is Excalibur?” he inquired skeptically.

“What?” The boy glanced down as if surprised to still be holding something.

“Excalibur?” Sam asked again. “Caliburn? Caledfwlch? ‘Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England?’”

“My god, you’re such a geek,” Dean muttered under his breath.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” “Merlin” replied, clasping the sword a little closer to his chest.

Then Dean jumped in, “Besides, aren’t you supposed to be all old and mysterious, long white beard, pointy hat?”

Merlin’s gaze shifted to him, even more dubious. “Still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sam decided playtime was over and a little more looming was in order. He stepped close again and demanded, “Why did your eyes turn yellow just now?”

“When I do magic, you mean?” Merlin bit his lip. “I don’t know. It’s been that way since I was born.”

“That’s what you think,” Sam murmured, exchanging another glance with Dean. “Look, I need to know more about this magic of yours. You can move things with your mind, right? I saw you draw the sword to you.”

Merlin nodded.

“Anything else? Premonitions? Strength? Other powers?”

A peculiar expression flickered across the boy’s face, but he didn’t respond, and Sam wanted nothing more than to take him by the scruff of the neck and march him someplace nice and quiet for a thorough interrogation.

Merlin must’ve picked up on that vibe, because he quickly scanned the rest of the tent, as if looking for help from being repressed. Sam recalled suddenly that they were in public, making a bit of a scene. He took a step back in order to stop so obviously invading Merlin’s personal space and bumped slightly into Dean.

At that, Merlin gave a smirk—an apologetic smirk, but a smirk, nonetheless-- and said, “As much as I’d like to stay and chat, I’m afraid my prince has need of me.” Then he swept out a hand, causing a heavy bundle of wooden quarterstaffs leaning against the wall to clatter down between them, and ran. Dean dove for him but stumbled over the shifting pile of staves. Merlin dashed just beyond his outstretched fingertips, out the canvas flap that Dennis had used to exit the back of the stall.

Sam lunged forward too, running through the flap, past a surprised Dennis with a breathless, “Be right back!” and skidded, stopping just outside the tent, searching for which direction the kid had fled.

“Little weasel,” Dean huffed behind him. He peered into the milling crowd: children in face paint tugging along women with flower wreathes in their hair, a make-believe knight followed by a troupe of minstrels, and several odd groups of teens dressed as characters from _Lord of the Rings_. “Let’s circle the perimeter. I’ll meet you ‘round the other side.”

“Right,” Sam replied, heading into the throng.

***

Something—a hunch-- drew Sam toward the artificial lake that had been bulldozed out of a huge tract of land northwest of the main Faire site. Sam knew from the guidebook schedule that there was a Viking boat display and a simulated sea attack on a mock castle tower planned as part of a later weekend’s events, but nothing scheduled for that day.

He started picking his way through the mass of people, frustrated by the stops and starts. He got jostled and stepped on and poked in the ribs by a little girl with a paper parasol, so finally, he turned and slipped behind the Crown and Rabbit Tavern to make his way more rapidly through the back alleys behind the shops. By the time he burst onto the path leading around the lake, he’d managed to break into a full-out run. He spied a figure ahead, which ducked behind some shrubbery and undergrowth on the undeveloped far side.

“Merlin!” he cried, and saw the figure’s head jerk up in recognition. Hastily, he pulled out his phone, punched the number for Dean and gasped “At the lake!” into the mouthpiece before slowing down to approach more cautiously.

He already had evidence that whatever powers the kid might have, Sam was apparently impervious to them, but he wasn’t taking chances.

Foot-high waves were breaking against the sloping shoreline as the wind picked up and Sam rounded the brush that hid Merlin. He had begun a low chant in an unrecognizable tongue that ate away at Sam’s nerves. Was he like Ava, summoning that Acheri Demon? Was the body possessed after all, powerful enough to be immune to their test? Sam’s stomach cramped, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat as he began to reach deep down to access his own powers. This one wasn’t getting away.

He stopped a few yards away, feet spread and planted, but still ready to dodge, as Merlin raised the polished steel blade, ceremoniously, holding it high above his head so that the noonday sun ricocheted off its length.

A splash sounded far out on the water. Sam jerked around and saw ripples expanding outward from… a hand. That was definitely a woman’s hand rising from the depths.

Then Merlin adroitly spun the blade about, let go of its hilt, and sent it cartwheeling high into the air. Together, he and Sam watched as the shimmering hand surged high and deftly snagged the sword out of the air, before vanishing silently into the lake.

“Sam! You okay?” Sam spun to see Dean sprinting up the path.

“Yeah. Good.” He turned back to Merlin-- _Merlin_ \-- and caught his breath. There was suddenly something unearthly about him, as if his distinct edges were blurred, as if he stood in the distance across a heat-shimmered desert. Sam abandoned any thoughts of psychic kids or demonic possession or any hope he’d had of getting answers about his own powers. Or possibly even another ally.

Instead he asked, “Was that Vivaine?”

“Who?” Merlin answered, puzzled, voice ringing with a slight echo.

“Nimue? The Lady of the Lake?”

“It _was_ the Lady of the Lake—she’s how I got here in the first place. I’m not that powerful. Yet…But anyway, she’s certainly not _Nimueh_.”

“Well.” Sam had deduced by now that things in Merlin’s reality didn’t exactly match up with the legends Sam was familiar with, but he couldn’t resist. “Watch out for Nimueh. She’s bad news for you.”

Merlin grinned wide and bright. He was almost translucent at this point. “Don’t worry. That I _do_ understand.”

Then he turned and dived into the water. He didn’t resurface.

Sam stood still, letting the wind cool his face and tug at his shirts, then looked at his brother in bewilderment. “What the hell was that?”

Dean continued to frown out at the water for a few more seconds, opened his mouth as if to say something, shut it again. He scrubbed a hand over his face then shrugged and started back toward the Faire. “Beats me. But, hell, I figure time-travel trumps demon blood any day. What were you saying about jousting?”

Sam knew that he’d have a lot of contemplating and a whole lot of research ahead of him to even begin to make sense of what had just happened, but as he caught up with Dean, he chose to let it fall away for the moment. If Dean wanted to avoid another conversation about his powers, Sam was willing to let it slide. For the moment.

“Let’s give it a try. At the very least, it’ll give you an excuse for the bowlegs.” Sam preemptively dodged to the side to avoid a thwack to the head.

Dean settled for kicking some very small rocks in his direction. “At least when I’m riding, _my_ legs won’t be dragging on the ground.”

“Jealous much, shorty?”

“Mostly worried about the poor horse. Do you think they could give you something sturdier? A cow, maybe?”

“It’s not a rodeo, Dean.”

“Two coconuts?”

“I told you this morning, I’m not going to spend the day quoting Python with you. It’s asinine…” Sam glared at him, then sighed and added, “..you silly English k-nig-ht.”

“Ha! That’s my boy!” Dean beamed and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “So, knights-in-shining-armor it is. Let’s get a sandwich first, though. Okay?”

“With tomatoes?”

“You’re on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Final A/N: Yes, there are references to _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ sprinkled around in here. Seventeen of them, to be exact. I’m just that big of a dork.


End file.
